Martin: Lazio test was good for us
Russell Martin felt Southampton's pre-season meeting with Lazio was a good step up for his team, as they continue to work towards the start of the Premier League campaign.
Saints drew 1-1 with their Italian opponents in what was, at times, a heated friendly affair, with both teams reduced to ten men for the final 30 minutes of the contest after Charly Alcaraz and Alessio Romagnoli were shown red cards following an altercation.
While that changed the complexion of the game, Martin was satisfied with what his team got from the night.
"I think it was good for us, physically good for us," he said. "A big step up from last week in terms of opposition, the quality of the opposition. Really brilliant for some of the guys to play their first game at St Mary's. That will be good for them, and just to keep playing in the way we're asking them to play, so I'm really positive about that and they'll be in a better place for it – Woody, Ronnie, Charlie Taylor, Ben, all those guys.
"Then the game obviously descended into a little bit of carnage and chaos, which isn't ideal, but it happened and I actually really liked the aggression in the team today on the pitch – not that bit, but I think one of their guys and one of our guys, Charly, they had an altercation and then their players got involved to protect their mate and our players got involved to protect theirs, so I like the fact they look after each other, but it wasn't ideal for the game.
"The game sort of went a bit after that, but I actually thought we managed the game really well after that and, like I said, from where we were a week ago at Oxford when I'm talking to you about a bit of a lack of personality and character, we had that tonight in abundance. So I'm really pleased with that. That was better and now we have another game Saturday, which will be a step up again, and I'm really, really looking forward to it."
Martin added: "Physically the guys look really good. Mentally they're good. They're together, you can see that tonight, even during that incident.
"We just still have a lot to work on tactically and a few details, but that will change for every game as well, so we know there's some really important stuff, we feel, analysing Newcastle, there's going to be some stuff that's really important to us, and we played a couple of shapes again tonight to look at things and to try and learn from that, and then that will change again for Forest, so the process will be to learn as much we possibly can from every game and that will include include tonight's game as well."
On Ben Brereton Díaz, who scored within five minutes of his first start for the club, Martin said: "He has real quality, real guile, real intelligence. He's a brilliant signing for us, really good character-wise as well. So that'll be really good for Ben, I'm pleased for him."
